Why Read the Old Testament

A lot of Christians believe that we do not need to read the Old Testament. What's the point? Why read the Old Testament? And we in the Church, we believe we should read the Old Testament because we keep the law. And we believe that after baptism, that you are to keep the law and go on to perfection. But maybe there's something we miss.

There's another layer to that. And why we read the Old Testament? And, you know, perhaps the average Christian would think that it's just not relevant. You've got the New Testament now. Why read the Old Testament? It's hard to understand. It's cryptic. It's several millennia old, so the cultures are different. And we have the New Testament. That's what shapes Western society.

That should be all we need. And yet, the early apostles didn't teach that way. In fact, they taught something very important about the Old Testament. Something that we don't necessarily consider. We do consider that we're supposed to keep the Ten Commandments, for example.

But do we consider that the Old Testament actually helps us understand the context and framework of the New Testament? To the point that if we do not know the Old Testament, we cannot understand the New Testament. Can I back that up? Or is that just talking to defend our stance? No. Actually, that's what the apostles in Jesus Christ say. If we do not know the Old Testament Scriptures, we can't even understand what's being said in the New Testament. Let's go through that today.

And we'll start in Romans 7, verse 1. We're dropping right into the middle of Paul talking about the conversion process. Romans 6, 7, and 8. Right in the middle in Romans 7, verse 1, Paul says something, and he makes a parenthetical statement. You know, parenthetical statements, they usually are less important or they're a side point.

You know, he's stepping away from the point to say something else, then he'll get back to the point in just a minute. That's usually what we think of with a parenthetical statement. However, this parenthetical statement is different. The entire crux of what Paul is saying pivots on this statement. Without this statement, he's saying you don't get what I'm talking about. Romans 7, verse 1, or do you not know, brethren?

Parenthetical statement, for I speak to those who know the law. That the law has dominion over man as long as he lives. Paul is saying because for, in other words, for I speak to those who know the law. The Old Testament Scriptures. In order for you to understand the conversion process, Paul assumes you already know the Old Testament. Who's the audience in the Book of Romans? Jews? I ask you. Is it Jews? Is it people who automatically know the law? No, it's not. The Book of Romans was written to Christians, Gentile Christians.

Paul is assuming that Gentile Christians know the law. And with this parenthetical statement, what Paul is saying is if you don't know the Old Testament Scriptures, you will have no idea what I'm even talking about. You have no context to know what I'm talking about. You have to have the foundation before you build the house. You have to know the Old Testament before you can even begin to understand the New Testament. Why is there so much controversy between denominations of the Christian world? Why are there so many differences, major, major differences, when they interpret the New Testament? One of the main reasons is context. They have no context for interpreting the New Testament. And since they don't have the framework of the Old Testament, since they've rejected—not all of them have, but some of them have—rejected the Old Testament Scriptures as though there's no need to read them, they come up with all kinds of wild ideas on what the actual New Testament means.

So if you don't know the Old Testament, Paul's words would be lost on you. Much of the New Testament would be lost on you. If you don't understand the basics of the Old Testament, you will likely misunderstand the message that's trying to be conveyed in the New Testament. And if you miss the message, you miss out on life, because these are the words of life. How important is reading the Old Testament? You know, we read the New Testament all the time.

We read the Psalms and the Proverbs. Most Christians do. Do we really delve into how long has it been since you've read Habakkuk? How long? Ever? Have you ever read it? Context. New Testament writers cite the Old Testament in their letters almost 700 times. If you take the New Testament, you will find almost 700 quotes of the Old Testament, as if to say, we're basing this on the Old Testament.

And if you don't understand it, you don't get what I'm about to write. It implies that, brethren, we need to be more familiar with the New Testament than we are. Studying the New Testament is important, but likewise it's also very important to study what we call Old Testament scriptures. The New Testament writers didn't actually call the scriptures Old Testament. The Old Testament referred to the covenant that was made with an ancient nation called Israel at Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb.

That's what the Old Covenant or Old Testament is. But the Old Testament laws, what we understand and we most commonly say is the Old Testament laws are the minimum standard of acceptable behavior. And we all understand that. You can't go below the minimum and expect to be like Jesus Christ. And that's our mantra. And that's what we teach, right? Jesus said it's not enough just not to kill.

You can't also hate. Well, don't kill is the Old Testament scripture. It's the minimum standard of acceptable behavior. All right. So here's the minimum standard. Don't kill. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal. Don't lie. That's kindergarten. Jesus said you've got to go way beyond that. And we get into this battle and this tussle because we're called legalists sometimes.

Oh, you think you have to keep the law. There's nothing but the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. After that, do what you will and you're saved. And we say, no, no, no. And then they say, oh, that makes you a legalist. So we're over here fighting the battle of we have to keep the law to go into perfection. And we're missing a big portion of it over here that says if you don't understand the Old Testament, you don't even get the context of the New Testament.

You can't get the context of the New Testament. And that's not me saying that. That's from the apostles and as we'll see from Jesus Christ himself. Much of the New Testament cannot be correctly understood without the knowledge of the law of God or God's instruction. So mostly the Christians of the world say today that the law was nailed to the cross.

But in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 7, Matthew 5 and verse 17, we'll read verses 17 and 18. Matthew 5 verse 17. Jesus said, and we all know this, but let's keep it in mind. This is interesting. You may not have known this part about it. Do not think that I come to destroy the law or the prophets.

I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, until heaven and earth have passed away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law until all is fulfilled.

A lot of people look at fulfilled as meaning stopped or halted. So it seems like Jesus is just playing with words. Oh, I didn't come to do away with it. I just come to stop it. I didn't come to do away with it. I just came to sort of complete it, and now you don't have to do it anymore.

In other words, I did it for you, and that's the way they interpret fulfilled. And we know from many years, if you've been in the church at any length of time, the word fulfilled, according to Sayer, and you're probably very familiar with this definition, means to fill to the top, to cause to abound, to see through to the end. But it doesn't mean to end. He never said, I came to end the law. He said, I came not to end the law, but to fill it up. But did you know that they use that word in the Greek world differently than just to fill up, like I'm going to fill up my cup here, all the way to the brim?

Now that's literally what the word means, but they used it in a colloquial sense with even further meaning. Let's notice in Romans chapter 15 and verse 19, you don't have to turn there because we're not going to read it, but they used that word, pleru, which is fulfilled, the Greek word pleru, as fully preach. That's how they used that word. So Jesus was saying in context of how they used the word, I did not come to destroy the law or the prophet.

I came to fully preach it. That's what he was saying. And not one jot or tittle will be done away with until it is fully preached. Okay? So he was explaining that he was going to teach the Old Testament.

Jesus himself said that. He was going to fill it out, explain it in greater detail, help us to understand it better. And that is exactly what he was doing in that sermon. Notice what location we're in right now. We're in Matthew chapter 5. That's the sermon on the Mount. That's the place where he says, you've heard it said, you shall not murder.

I say, do not hate. You have heard it said, where he quotes the Old Testament. He fully preaches the Old Testament and he fills it up. He makes it bigger. So Jesus Christ was saying, I came to preach the Old Testament and make it make sense. To think you only need the New Testament, and some people would include the Psalms and the Proverbs, is absolute foolishness. The New Testament writers write from the assumption that you, the reader, already know the Old Testament. Now, the Old Testament is broken down into three parts. We break it down into three parts. There's the law, which is the first five books that Moses wrote, the writings, which are books like Joshua, Judges, Ruth, etc.

And then the prophets, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, things like that. The law, the writings, and the prophets. But most of the time, the New Testament writers didn't write all three categories down, the apostles. They just said the law and the prophets, which includes the writings. Okay, so if you would notice in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus said the law and the prophets. He was talking about specifically what we call Old Testament scriptures. They called it the law and the prophets.

Maybe that's what we ought to say. The law and the prophets, instead of the Old Testament, as if it's something old and worn out. There's nothing worn out about it. Oh, it's more basic. The New Testament is definitely advanced beyond the Old Testament.

But you can't understand the advanced until you know the basics. And that's the point of this sermon. It's like saying you can read Shakespeare, but you don't need to know the English alphabet. Really? You can understand complex algebraic formulas, but you can't add or subtract. Really? You can build a beautiful house, but you don't know anything about a hammer, a screwdriver, or a saw.

Really? No one would accuse you of legalism if you told people they first need to know the alphabet before they can read Shakespeare. You first have to know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide before you can do algebra. You first have to know about a hammer, a screwdriver, and a saw before you can build a house.

Nobody would call you a legalist if you said that. So why do people call us legalists for saying we have to keep the, what they call, Old Testament?

Why do people have that argument? Well, Romans 8 and chapter 7. I know I go there a lot, but it's for good reason. We're people with carnal human nature, and we live in a very dark world. Why? Romans 8, chapter 7. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God, the Old Testament, nor indeed can be. You see, the carnal mind is not enmity against the alphabet. Well, with some people it is enmity against adding and subtracting, but not most people. The carnal mind is not enmity against a hammer, a screwdriver, and a saw. The carnal mind is enmity against the law of God. Automatically, when we start talking about the law, rules of behavior that sing inside us in human nature that says, Don't tell me what to do, springs up. And that's where the argument comes from. It doesn't come from reason or logic. We feel very comforted and very settled that we keep the Old Testament scriptures, the law and the prophets. They are the framework to understand the words of life. Without them, we have nothing.

There is a blindness in human nature due to that hostility. Jesus Christ's sacrifice did away with the need for many rituals, including sacrifices that God gave to the ancient Israelites. But it did not do away with His word. Nowhere, and we know that. We know that, right? And we preach that and we argue that. But do we appreciate the law and the prophets? The framework. How long has it been since you've read the story of Abraham or Joseph or Joshua or Samson or Noah? What we risk is forgetting all of those things, losing the context of the book of Leviticus. I know some of you study them very, very carefully. I know others of us rarely ever read the law and the prophets. And then we don't have context to answer those tough, complex questions that the New Testament writers were writing about. There's no context. So what do we do if we don't have context? What this writer is talking about. What do we do? We tend to fill in the blanks. What do we fill it in with? Our own opinion. We ask somebody else. We get into a group. We feel safe. Okay? What do you all think? Well, I think it's like this. Well, in my experience, it's like this. And we're usually dead wrong. Because we have no context of what the Old Testament Scriptures have said. Nowhere in the New Testament does it say that the law is done away. In fact, it says the opposite. Luke 16, verse 14. Luke 16, verse 14. Please turn there and read this with me.

Now the Pharisees were lovers of money. Also heard all these things, and they derided him. And he said to them, You are those who justify yourselves before men. You know what, brethren? We do that, too. If we don't understand the context of something, we go and get other people's opinion as to what the New Testament Scripture meant. Honestly. That's the blind leading the blind. Unless that person has context of the law and the prophets, what we call the Old Testament Scriptures, you don't have any idea how to interpret that New Testament Scripture. You are those who justify yourselves before men. But God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. Do not trust your own opinion. The law and the prophets, there it is again, the Old Testament Scriptures, were until John, since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. And it's easier for heaven and earth to pass away than one tittle of the law to fail. So he's saying again, once again, Jesus Christ is saying that those Old Testament Scriptures aren't going anywhere. Don't trust your own opinion. You want to get the basics? Study the Old Testament Scriptures. You want context for salvation? Know the Old Testament Scriptures. Verse 15. No, no, I'm sorry. We're going to jump. Let's go to Matthew 13 now. Matthew 13. And we'll go to verse 15, where 15 and 17. An interesting statement here in Matthew 13. He says in verse 15, Verse 15. For the hearts of the people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear. And they have closed their eyes so that their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me, and let me heal them. And verse 16. Interesting statement. But blessed are your eyes because they see. By the way, I'm reading from New Living Translation. Sorry, Ben. So I'm reading what's different than on your screen. New Living Translation. But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. I tell you the truth. Listen to this. Many prophets and righteous people who long to see what you see. He refers back to the people who wrote the Old Testament Scriptures.

This whole thing about those eyes who see is framed around knowing the law and the prophets. The parable of the sower of the seed. You know, some is sowed on good ground, and some is sowed on bad ground. What is that seed? The Word of God. So New Living Translation, not NIV. N-L-T. N-L-T. Try to pull that one up. Verse 17. That's fine. I tell you the truth. Many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see, but they didn't see it. They long to hear what you hear, but they didn't hear it. What's this saying? The New Testament Scriptures is advanced, and you get to understand things that the Old Testament writers didn't understand. But the context, in order to gain the context of these New Testament Scriptures, you first have to know the Old Testament. So what I'd like to do is I'd like to just give two examples of how modern Christianity wildly misunderstands the New Testament Scriptures because they don't have the context or framework of the Old Testament Scriptures. And it'll be clear to see what I'm talking about, that it's more than just going on to perfection, that the Old Testament Scriptures, the law and the prophets, are there to help us actually understand salvation itself, because they are the basics that frame the understanding that the New Testament gives us. So, first example that I would like to give from the New Testament that people misunderstand is what happens to us immediately after death. You know, it would be possible to gain this understanding without Old Testament Scriptures by just using the New Testament, but you would not be able to convince people of it. Because the New Testament Scriptures tend to skip the basics. And when they skip the basics, it's so easy to take them out of context and make it seem like when you die, you go straight to heaven, that there is an immortal soul and that we are out of our minds to think that we actually stay in the grave and wait for God to call us. That basic understanding of what happens when a man dies is found in the Old Testament.

So, let's start in the New Testament in Philippians chapter 1 and verse 23. New Living Translation again, Philippians chapter 1 verse 23. We'll read verses 23 and 24. And Paul is talking here, and the Apostle Paul says, I am torn between two desires. I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. But for your sake, it is better that I continue to live. I long to be with Christ. Now, if you don't have Old Testament context, and you read that, you would think Paul is saying, I would rather just die and go to heaven, because I would be floating on a cloud with no pain and all the other things that are associated with the immortal soul doctrine.

You can see how people who don't read the Old Testament don't have any context for that statement. Paul was a Pharisee before he became a Christian. He was the Pharisee of the Pharisees. He knew the law of God. Paul, every time he talked, had context. So, when he talked, he talked from the context of the Old Testament.

I'll prove that to you in just a minute. But what context did Paul have? Well, let's go back to the Old Testament Scriptures and find out what did Paul mean, I want to go and be with Christ. What do you mean, go? Go where? Well, let's start in Job. We notice that Job says we have to wait. We have to wait when we die. Job, Chapter 14, verse 14, back to New King James. Job, Chapter 14, verse 14. If a man dies, shall he live again?

Right there, it's sex context. He doesn't say if a man dies, does he continue to live? If a man dies, does he have an immortal soul? That's not what he's saying. He's saying, if you stop, will you start up again? Context. All the days of my hard service, I will wait till my change comes. You can call and I will answer you. You shall desire the work of your hands. He will call him when he waits after he dies. Daniel and the resurrection. The resurrection to eternal life will come from the grave from people who are asleep in the ground.

Daniel, Chapter 12, verses 1-3. Daniel, Chapter 12, verses 1-3. We're setting context here for what Paul said in Philippians. The resurrection to eternal life comes from the grave, not immediately upon death. Daniel, Chapter 12, verse 1. At that time, Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands and watch over the sons of your people. And there will be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time.

And at that time, your people shall be delivered. Everyone who is found written in the book. Everyone living? No. Verse 2. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake. Now, that's a Hebraism.

That doesn't mean that your bed is dirty. You sleep in the dust, right? You don't have a bed, or you forgot to change the sheets for a really long time. And you sleep in the dust. Sleep in the dust means you're dead. And they refer to death as sleep. What an accurate analogy. And resurrection is God waking you up. Context. Context. Verse 3. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament. So you can't... There are some offshoots of Christianity that believe that some people will be resurrected to a physical resurrection for eternity.

And other people will be resurrected to eternal life as a spirit being. And they're really in the minority. But if you just understood the Old Testament Scriptures and gained some context, this is talking about resurrection to a spiritual life.

And you know what, brethren? When you die, you sleep in the dust. Ecclesiastes chapter 9 and verse 10. Context. Ecclesiastes chapter 9 and verse 10. We read this to teenagers when we tell them to get a job. But it actually sets context for what happens to us when we die. Verse 10. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. This is Ecclesiastes chapter 9 and verse 10. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. For there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.

When you go to the grave, it's lights out. You're asleep. Like that really good sleep. You know, when you put your head on the pillow and you wake up and it's already 9 o'clock in the morning, the sun's already high up in the sky, and you felt like you just went to bed. That's what death is like. Completely unaware of the passage of time.

Paul understood the Old Testament Scriptures. But if you read what we read in Philippians, you would think that Paul was going to heaven, that he had an immortal soul, because you had no context for what Paul was talking about. But do you know? We can prove that Paul understood and believed the Old Testament Scriptures. Turn to 2 Timothy 4, verse 6. Paul says, As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God.

The time of my death is near. I'm back in New Living Translation. You can keep it, New King James. That's fine. I have fought the good fight, and I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. And now, the prize awaits me. So is he saying I'm going to go to heaven? Or does he have an Old Testament context? A context of the law and the prophets.

The crown of righteousness, he says, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me the day I die. No, that's not what he says. Will give me on the day of his return. Paul has a law and prophets context. And the prize is not just for me, but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing. Paul clearly understood and believed the Old Testament. So when we read Philippians chapter 1, verses 23 and 24, when Paul says, I long to go. He doesn't mean go to heaven.

He means die. Go from the physical life. And wait. That's what he meant. When he said, I long to go. I no longer want to suffer anymore. Because I know my next thought will be with Jesus Christ. So that's one example of how in real life, modern day Christianity misunderstands the word of salvation because they don't have context of the Old Testament, of the law and the prophets. What about you?

Let's go to a second example. What about the Holy Spirit? What or who is the Holy Spirit? If you were careful and meticulous, you could read the New Testament and not think the Holy Spirit was a person.

But it would be really easy to think the Holy Spirit was a person, an individual unit of God, if you will, as most people believe in the Trinity today, if you didn't have the context of the Old Testament. I know I've already given this to you in a sermon, but I just want to give it to you in relationship to appreciating the value of what we call the Old Testament, the law and the prophets. So let's get context. Is the Holy Spirit a person? Context. Genesis 1, where we're introduced to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a New Testament concept.

Genesis 1, verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep of the waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. God, in this talking about God here, God examined the earth with His Spirit as if He was there, even though He could have been sitting on His throne. With it, God can be anywhere and everywhere at the same time. Context. I taught you about Hebrew parallelisms, where one statement defines another statement if they're joined together in the Hebrew language. And that's basic Hebrew grammar. You have to know that to understand Hebrew. So if you're a Hebrew grammar student, if you're in the first grade in Israel, you understand parallelism. And if you don't understand parallelism, you don't understand Hebrew. So, unfortunately, that got translated over time and millennia into different languages. And we read it now in English, and we don't do parallelism. So we miss a lot of the things that are in the Old Testament. But because of parallelism, we get context that the Holy Spirit is not a person at all, but rather the presence and the power of God. Psalm 51, the famous psalm of repentance from the incident with Bathsheba. Psalm 51, verse 11. Context. This is a parallelism. Two statements that equal each other.

Psalm 51, verse 11. Do not cast me away from your presence. And do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Equating God's presence, just like in Genesis chapter 1, with His Holy Spirit. They're the same. The Holy Spirit is not an individual. It's actually the presence of the great God. Same thing. Psalm 139, verse 7. Just reverses it. Still a parallelism. Where can I go? Psalm 139, verse 7. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? Here's more context on the Holy Spirit. From the Old Testament Scriptures. Zechariah 4, verses 5-7. New Living Translation on this one, Ben. Zechariah 4, 5-7. Verse 5. Don't you know, the angel asked, No, my Lord, I replied. Then he said to me, This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel. It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven, the Lord of the Heaven's armies. Nothing, not even a mighty mountain, will stand in Zerubbabel's way. It has become a level plain before him. And when Zerubbabel sets the final stone of the temple in place, the people will shout, May God bless it, may God bless it.

The Holy Spirit in this context is mentioned as God's strength, His power. When we anoint somebody, we use oil, a symbol of His Holy Spirit, which is just a symbol of His power to heal. Never any mention of God's Spirit as a person in the Old Testament. And that's what the apostles relied upon for their authority. That's why in the New Testament, when Paul ever gives a greeting, he gives a greeting from the Father and Jesus Christ. Never does he mention the Holy Spirit as a person. Why does Paul do that? Because Paul has the context, the framework that he learned from the law and the prophets, the Old Testament Scriptures.

So just to summarize, let's go back then to Romans 7, where we started. Let's just walk through a few Scriptures in Romans 7.

Like many of Paul's writings, Romans 7 is one of those Scriptures that trips people up to think we don't have to keep the law, we don't need the Old Testament anymore. And how ironic it is that in Romans 7, Paul was actually saying, if you don't understand the Old Testament, you're not even going to get what I'm about to say. Isn't that ironic? Romans 7 is one of those difficult Scriptures that people use to say the law is done away. And Paul was actually saying, if you don't understand the law and the prophets, buddy, you're not going to get this. Let's walk through it. Romans 7, verse 1, New King James. Or do you not know, brethren? For I speak to those who know the law.

So if you walk past this point and you don't know the law, you're wasting your time. That's what Paul's saying. That the law has dominion over man as long as he lives. And then he goes on to explain how a woman is bound by the law of her husband. And in verse 4, Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. I'd like to read from our Covenants booklet, the United Church of God Covenants booklet. Notice that Paul does not say that the law is dead. Rather, we become dead to the law on repentance. That is, the law's claim on our life as the penalty for breaking it is considered met through Jesus Christ's sacrificial death in our place. Paul's point is that, like a woman released from a specific law binding her to her former husband, we, through Jesus' death, were released from the law's specific requirements of death for past sins. How would you know that unless you had the context of the law? So you can see, people reading Romans chapter 7 with no context of the law would say the law is done away. How do we know, am I reading from our Covenants booklet, that we know it's the penalty of the law? Because we know the law, and we know exactly what Paul's talking about. You break the law, you die. You're found working on the Sabbath, you die. You commit adultery, you die. There's all kinds of things. You murder somebody. What do they do? Well, they take you out in a public square, and they stone you to death. Context. And if you didn't know that, you have no clue what Paul is talking about in Romans chapter 7. But if you know that, you can understand it.

Verse 5, Romans chapter 7. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law... Ooh, there's an awkward statement. Sin or passions are actually aroused by the law? Like the law causes us to sin? Well, if you have an Old Testament context, you would know that can't be true, and you would look that word up. If you did not have an Old Testament context, if you didn't know the Old Testament Scriptures, the law and the prophets, you would read right over that. And you would say to yourself, wow, it's the law that's bad. The law arouses passions within me. If I just didn't know the law, I wouldn't have any passions aroused in me. That's not what the word means at all.

The word aroused by in the New King James isn't correct. It simply means to be made known by the law. The law makes us aware whether or not a certain action is sin or not. That's all that word means. You wouldn't have even thought to look that up if you didn't have the context of the Old Testament Scriptures. You would have just read right over that. You would have thought that Paul was saying the law arouses sin within you. Verse 6, But now we have been delivered from the law. Context, the penalty that the law brings. Death. That's what Paul's talking about. How do we know death is what he's talking about? Read on.

Wow! Paul just said you're supposed to keep the law and the prophets in a new spirit. He just says that in verse 6. You are supposed to keep it. Not just the letter. You're not just supposed to know the basics. You Christians need to go on to algebraic heights. You need to build the Taj Mahal. Not just know how to use a screwdriver and a hammer and a saw. You need to be a master builder. That's what Paul is saying in verse 6. Not just the letter, but keep the law from its original intent, the spirit.

Hosea 2, verse 16. I have this in my margin by Romans 7, verse 6. Hosea 2, verse 16. It shall be, God predicted, that Christians would look at the law this way. Not as a taskmaster, but something that we love.

And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, that they will call me my husband and no longer my master. We will look at God's word as something that cares for us, that provides for us and keeps us safe. Not the old taskmaster that tells us what to do. That's what Paul is saying here.

Back to Romans 7, then, verse 7. Now we can understand his conclusion. Romans 7, verse 7. Paul concludes this little thought. Now, he started this thought with, if you don't understand the law and the prophets, you're not even going to get what I'm about to say. But if you understand the law and the prophets, you're going to get my conclusion in verse 7. And here it is. What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Is the law of God the old taskmaster what's done away with?

Certainly not. On the contrary, it's the opposite. The law is the opposite of sin. The law is the opposite of something that does harm to us. The law is awesome, Paul is saying. I would not have known sin except through the law. For what I would not have known, I would not have known covetousness unless the law said, you shall not covet. So, in context, Paul is saying you first have to know the law and the prophets, what we call the Old Testament Scriptures, if you want a chance at understanding the New Testament. If you just look at one or two scriptures without knowing the entire framework of the Bible, it would be easy to twist things around. You must have a good understanding of the entire Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Bible consists of four parts in the Bible, if you want to generalize it. You could break it down farther than that. The four parts are the law, verse 5 books of the Bible, the writings, and the prophets, and number 4, the New Testament. The fourth and final part is the New Testament. And let's just say you had written a play with four acts, and you give a copy of the script to a friend, and your friend only reads the fourth act, the New Testament. But he ignores Acts 1, 2, and 3. He just skims or flips through it, and then he gets to Acts 4. Does he understand the play? Does he know? Does he get the impact of the final climactic ending? No. He doesn't. He's like, I don't know. What's going on here? Why? Because he has no context.

Christians who claim to understand the New Testament, even though they have very limited knowledge of the law, the prophets, and the writings of the Old Testament, they are people who would not be complete in their understanding. They only have partial knowledge. We understand that we're supposed to keep the law, and we're very good at saying that, but brethren, the value of the Old Testament goes beyond that, even. When you read the Bible, make sure you read the entire Bible. Don't just read the last act in the play. Don't just read the New Testament and think that you understand everything. But include the Old Testament Scriptures in your daily Bible study routine so that you actually have context for what the words of salvation actually mean.